Bloomington, Ind., boy smashes cup-stacking records

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - When watching 7-year-old Austin Naber stack cups, you think your eyes are playing tricks on you. It's like viewing a recorded TV show on fast forward.

The tow-headed youngster's hands are a blur as he constructs and deconstructs pyramids of cups in the blink of an eye.

Since he began competing in World Sport Stacking Association-sanctioned events five months ago, Austin has smashed six world records.

"I like being challenged," he told The Herald-Times. "When I'm competing, I get a little nervous, but I pretend the world record-holder is sitting across from me and I try to beat him."

A second-grader at Lakeview Elementary School, Austin has learned his cup-stacking prowess can wow a crowd. He was a colossal hit at last year's school variety show, even though the 4-foot-tall youngster needed a stepstool to perform his gig on a fold-out table.

Austin was 6 when he became enthralled by "Minute to Win It," a TV show in which contestants compete in skill games using everyday objects — such as chopsticks, rubber bands or table tennis balls.

When he went on You Tube to try to learn more about one of the show's challenges involving cups, he stumbled across several videos of speed-stackers in action. He was hooked.

He asked his mother, Karen Naber, to take him to Walmart, where she bought him several large plastic drinking cups — which he began stacking nonstop on the living room table.

"He drove us crazy," she said. "He became addicted to it."

Austin tried drinking cups and shot glasses before working with official plastic World Sport Stacking cups. After practicing two hours a day for nine months, Austin entered his first WSSA-sanctioned competition March 10 in Connersville — an event that drew 200 competitors.

He set world records for 6-year-olds in the "3-3-3" and the "cycle." Each event requires competitors to build and tear down specified stacking formations as fast as they can. Austin bested the world record of 2.33 seconds in the 3-3-3 with a blazing 2.28 seconds, and beat the world record of 8.90 in the cycle with an 8.78. Not bad for the rookie's debut.

He competed again June 9 in St. Louis, Mo., this time in the 7- and 8-year-old category, where he broke world records in the same two events, completing the 3-3-3 in 2.19 seconds and the cycle in 7.56.

The next month, he was invited to join Team USA, an elite group of 100 of the nation's best sport stackers that participates in a world competition each year in a different country.

Austin's third competition, the invitation-only Junior Olympics July 27-28 in Houston, Texas, turned tragic. The night before the event, while he was with his mother in Houston, he learned that his father, Bob Naber, had died unexpectedly.

"He started crying," Karen said. "The two of them were very close. Bob was the kind of dad who would get down on the floor and tumble with him, and they would play golf, basketball and baseball together. Bob called him Peanut."

When Karen asked Austin if he wanted to skip the competition and go home, he said no. The next day his eyes filled with tears as he told his teammates, "My daddy died."

"His teammates were so supportive," she said. "They said he could record his scores first so he could go home early, but he said he wanted to stay both days. I think staying there and competing helped him deal with his grief."

During the competition, which drew 300 of the best speed stackers in the country, he won two gold medals, a silver and a bronze. His gold medals came in his two best events — the 3-3-3 and the cycle — in which he broke his own world records with times of 2.00 and 7.34 respectively.

"I love watching his enthusiasm and passion when he competes," Karen said. "He just lights up. And he has a lot of fun and doesn't take it too seriously."

Karen said Austin is also well-liked by his fellow competitors.

"He knows everyone else's scores and they like that," she said. "He'll say, 'Oh, you're Jeremy. I've seen you on You Tube. You got your personal best today.'"

Right now the "overall" world record holders in Austin's two favorite events are 13-year-old Chandler Miller, who completed the 3-3-3 in 1.53 seconds; and 13-year-old William Orrell, who did the cycle in 5.68 seconds.

"I want to get faster and faster and keep breaking world records," Austin said. "Someday, I want to be the fastest in the world for all the age brackets."

When asked when he might retire from cup stacking, Austin said not until he was quite elderly.

"I guess that would be around 50," he said.

Though he's only 7, this is not Austin's first brush with fame. When he learned to write the entire alphabet at age 2, Karen sent a video of him doing so to "The Oprah Winfrey Show," which aired the clip during a segment on "The World's Smartest and Most Talented Kids."

"There's a lot of research showing that speed stacking is good for not only dexterity but for the development of the brain," Karen said. "Cup-stackers tend to do better in school."

Austin is an A student, by the way, who takes advanced reading and math classes.